I had this concern with the delta data, even when it was separated into age groups by decade, which i saw in some uk data.
But danish govt published the age-group case distribution of omicron vs other variants. Omicron much more prevalent amongst younger, equal to or even greater than the population age distribution. This for me, on a very basic and provisional level at least, dealt with this question.
You (and everyone else saying similar things) have not convinced me on a couple of points which I think the analysis needs to address.
Firstly, the very problematic concept of "unvaccinated". This aggregates the recovered and the immune naive (not having been infected with the virus at all). The proportion between these two categories has changed between the two waves and you need to take account of this.
Secondly, the comparison you make ignores the fact that the vaccinated are more likely not to have had delta. The fact that they are now getting omicron at increased rates may simply reflect this fact. So the vaccine has allowed some of them to "swap" omicron for delta, which would be a good thing. This is not evidence of OAS and, honestly, I don't want to be impolite, but I think it is a sloppy way to reason.
Lastly, I have yet to see analysis from anyone which recognizes that the hospitalized with omicron in SA are in most cases incidental, that the reduced severity of omicron makes further underdetection highly likely and that relative to the likely population incidence, a higher proportion of detected cases is likely to have been detected in a hospital setting where people are tested systematically. In other words, there is a base rate fallacy.
These are some quick thoughts off the top of my head and I would be interested in your reaction. I am not expecting epidemic new variants personally. I do agree with everyone who has made this point that on a precautionary basis the vaccine policy has been all wrong and we should have relied much more on natural immunity in the healthy and not vulnerable part of the population. I don't think anyone has yet shown OAS or ADE. In fact, Geert vanden Bossche, who has very much warned of this, seemed to be quite upbeat recently that omicron was in fact solliciting a broad spectrum immune response in the vaccinated as well. See https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/like-a-virgin-untouched-forever
Hi CPH. With both your first and second points, reinfection rates are still relatively small so almost everyone who is hospitalised will be exposed for the first time.
With regards incidental hospitalisations, I have not seen any data for this in South Africa, but it is very likely. However, it was also highly likely during the Delta wave.
No one has shown OAS or ADE yet, just pointing out whether we are seeing glimpses of it and to keep an eye on the data.
Also, it is important to show that the demonisation of the unvaccinated is unjustified.
Vanden Bossche made that observation while imploring the WHO and wealthy countries to stop boosters. He is very concerned that continued injections will lead to OAS and ADE.
WRT covid-recovered muddying the unvaccinated waters...I can't speak for South Africa, but in the United States we are pretending that prior infection does not confer immunity. The CDC data shows that over 60% of the people who were injected indicated that they were C19 recovered. It's very likely that a significant portion of those people had false positive PCRs because of the ridiculously high amplification cycles used...but not all of them. I know a number of young people who chose to or were required to get injected after C19 disease.
Think how much money and manpower the governments, unis and ngos of the world have. And after two years how much they could have refined the variables in their data collection. Then think of their communication power and unfettered relationship with media. What a travesty that finding the pivotal importances in the data is left to a few warriors in their spare time.
Regarding your second idea: have a look at the iceland govt data. You see a sudden change early december where vaxxed become much more susceptible. And the percentage of vaxxed being infected then passes the unvaxxed. The steepness of the vaxxed curve is much steeper and the change is sudden.
It would be great if we could separate the recovereds from the never-before-infecteds. I would say both from the unvaxxed and from the vaxxed.
Comparing unvaxxed vs vaxxed only for those who were never-before-infected, would be partic interesting. Although increasingly hard to find these people esp after omoronic wave!
This is a great article, although possibly age confounding will reveal that the bad effects of the vaccine are not quite as large.
But still we are living through the exciting and predicted time of vaccine failure and I thank you for exposing a part of this story.
I had this concern with the delta data, even when it was separated into age groups by decade, which i saw in some uk data.
But danish govt published the age-group case distribution of omicron vs other variants. Omicron much more prevalent amongst younger, equal to or even greater than the population age distribution. This for me, on a very basic and provisional level at least, dealt with this question.
You (and everyone else saying similar things) have not convinced me on a couple of points which I think the analysis needs to address.
Firstly, the very problematic concept of "unvaccinated". This aggregates the recovered and the immune naive (not having been infected with the virus at all). The proportion between these two categories has changed between the two waves and you need to take account of this.
Secondly, the comparison you make ignores the fact that the vaccinated are more likely not to have had delta. The fact that they are now getting omicron at increased rates may simply reflect this fact. So the vaccine has allowed some of them to "swap" omicron for delta, which would be a good thing. This is not evidence of OAS and, honestly, I don't want to be impolite, but I think it is a sloppy way to reason.
Lastly, I have yet to see analysis from anyone which recognizes that the hospitalized with omicron in SA are in most cases incidental, that the reduced severity of omicron makes further underdetection highly likely and that relative to the likely population incidence, a higher proportion of detected cases is likely to have been detected in a hospital setting where people are tested systematically. In other words, there is a base rate fallacy.
These are some quick thoughts off the top of my head and I would be interested in your reaction. I am not expecting epidemic new variants personally. I do agree with everyone who has made this point that on a precautionary basis the vaccine policy has been all wrong and we should have relied much more on natural immunity in the healthy and not vulnerable part of the population. I don't think anyone has yet shown OAS or ADE. In fact, Geert vanden Bossche, who has very much warned of this, seemed to be quite upbeat recently that omicron was in fact solliciting a broad spectrum immune response in the vaccinated as well. See https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/like-a-virgin-untouched-forever
Hi CPH. With both your first and second points, reinfection rates are still relatively small so almost everyone who is hospitalised will be exposed for the first time.
With regards incidental hospitalisations, I have not seen any data for this in South Africa, but it is very likely. However, it was also highly likely during the Delta wave.
No one has shown OAS or ADE yet, just pointing out whether we are seeing glimpses of it and to keep an eye on the data.
Also, it is important to show that the demonisation of the unvaccinated is unjustified.
Vanden Bossche made that observation while imploring the WHO and wealthy countries to stop boosters. He is very concerned that continued injections will lead to OAS and ADE.
WRT covid-recovered muddying the unvaccinated waters...I can't speak for South Africa, but in the United States we are pretending that prior infection does not confer immunity. The CDC data shows that over 60% of the people who were injected indicated that they were C19 recovered. It's very likely that a significant portion of those people had false positive PCRs because of the ridiculously high amplification cycles used...but not all of them. I know a number of young people who chose to or were required to get injected after C19 disease.
Think how much money and manpower the governments, unis and ngos of the world have. And after two years how much they could have refined the variables in their data collection. Then think of their communication power and unfettered relationship with media. What a travesty that finding the pivotal importances in the data is left to a few warriors in their spare time.
David vs goliath is nothing compared to this.
Regarding your second idea: have a look at the iceland govt data. You see a sudden change early december where vaxxed become much more susceptible. And the percentage of vaxxed being infected then passes the unvaxxed. The steepness of the vaxxed curve is much steeper and the change is sudden.
It would be great if we could separate the recovereds from the never-before-infecteds. I would say both from the unvaxxed and from the vaxxed.
Comparing unvaxxed vs vaxxed only for those who were never-before-infected, would be partic interesting. Although increasingly hard to find these people esp after omoronic wave!
You might find this interesting as a step back out of trees.
DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abl5842
https://github.com/Maximilian3141/isr_detailed_vacc_case_data/blob/main/isr_detail_v2.ipynb